ON ST. RADEGUND OR RADIGUND, BY OTHERS RADIANA, VIRGIN,
IN THE CASTLE OF WELLENBURG IN SWABIA, NEAR AUGSBURG,
About the end of the thirteenth century.
A HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
The public cult of the Saint, certain deeds, and her posthumous glory.
Radegund or Radiana, virgin, in Swabia (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
To Radegund the queen we subjoin another Saint of almost the same name, because this one has no certain or fixed day of veneration, We gather the sanctity of this Virgin as will appear from what is to be said below. But although this Virgin of humbler condition had nothing in her deeds in common with that other illustrious Radegund except the name and an exceptional charity toward lepers, yet by the public suffrage of the people, as much as that noble queen, she has been reckoned among the Heavenly ones, as German writers everywhere attest. Of these authors let us first hear Karl Stengel, a learned abbot of the Benedictine Order, who in the Commentary on the affairs of Augsburg, part 2, chapter 59, number 7, confirms the immemorial cult of this Saint in these words: "Here must be inserted, what could not be assigned to any certain year, blessed Radiana or Radigund the virgin, at Wellenburg near Augsburg a servant in the castle of the Lang family, patricians of Augsburg, of exceptional charity toward the poor, especially lepers, famous for miracles. She is honored especially in a chapel at the foot of the mountain and castle of Wellenburg, formerly sacred to St. Ursula, today to St. Radiana or Radegund, in which she is buried in a mausoleum raised from the ground: eight Cardinals in the year 1453, on the fourteenth day of May, gave indulgences to that chapel of St. Ursula, otherwise of blessed Radigund or Radiana. In the letters of Peter, Cardinal and bishop of Augsburg, of the year 1463, on the fourteenth day of April, it is called the chapel of the holy Ursula and Radigund; today it is known by the name of St. Radegund alone."
[2] I do not clearly enough understand whether that chapel, in which St. Radegund was buried immediately after her death, from a certain miracle, was anciently dedicated to St. Ursula, virgin and martyr, alone, or whether then also, in honor of St. Radegund, it began to bear the name of both Saints. Whatever be the case, in Stengel, among the Saints of Augsburg whom Dominicus Custos the engraver expressed in elegant pictures at Augsburg in the year 1601, in plate XXII are represented the deeds of this Saint, and to them is prefixed the following eulogy, or summary of the Acts: "St. Radiana or Radigund, virgin, served as a maidservant at Wellenburg near Augsburg, being of exceptional charity toward the poor, especially lepers: when she was once carrying them milk and butter by way of alms, meeting her master, they were turned into lye and a comb, which she was otherwise wont to use for washing and tending lepers; and when he had gone away, they returned again to their former appearance. And while she strenuously devoted herself to services of that kind, being wretchedly mangled by the tearing of wolves in a neighboring wood, she died holily on the third day after."
[3] to which Rader adds two like ones of others, Matthäus Rader, volume 3 of Sacred Bavaria, page 156, in the Acts of Bl. Notburga or Nuppurga, a maidservant of Rottenburg, who with like charity was wont to carry food to the poor, narrates a like change of provisions, and on that occasion in the same place makes mention of our Saint in passing thus: "The Annals of Augsburg contain a not dissimilar history in the Life of St. Radegund, except that she, being frightened, excused herself afterward by a lie, which God punished by sending wolves upon her." Besides, the same writer in Pious Bavaria, pages 108 and 109, among the deeds of Marold, a Religious of Undersdorf, reports a like miracle in this manner: "He was once carrying to certain lepers some crusts of bread and a little of the juice of wine, and meeting by chance his own superior (to whom he had already at other times been reported for excessive liberality toward the poor), being as it were caught and rather severely rebuked, and asked what he was carrying, he affirmed that he was carrying wood and lye; and it was brought about in a moment of time that the table which he was carrying was turned into timber and the liquid of lye, the prelate being astonished, and he himself was ordered to go where he was bound." Then Rader on this occasion again makes mention of our Saint in the same place thus: "A prodigy altogether like this is read in the Life of St. Radegund, the maidservant of Wellenburg, who is honored not far from Augsburg in a separate chapel. One not dissimilar thou wilt recognize below in St. Notburga of Rottenburg."
[4] and from coins, For the rest, in the aforesaid summary of the Acts which is prefixed to the Augsburg picture, the posthumous glory of St. Radiana or Radegund is set forth in these few words: "Her body, carried to Augsburg that it might be buried for honor's sake in her master's tomb, was by a divine admonition carried back thither where, since while living she had tended lepers, now a church being founded, she herself when dead is honored. Matthäus Lang, born of a famous and ancient patrician family at Augsburg, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and archbishop of Salzburg, commended her memory to posterity by very large coins of gold and silver, of which below is a copy." To these is subjoined each face of the coin, engraved in copper, on one part of which is exhibited the effigy of Matthäus Lang, and around it, besides the insignia of nobility, these words are inscribed: "Matheus: eps. Alean. Car.lis. archieps: Salisburg. ✠." But on the coin itself, under his effigy, the year is thus expressed: 1538. This part of the coin, which pertains little or not at all to our matter, we have not thought should be engraved in copper. But on the other part of the coin there is represented, with a radiated head, which is a token of sanctity, the very effigy of the Saint, attacked by two wolves, which we have ordered our engraver exactly to imitate. Behold it here.
[5] Corbinian Khamm, of the Order of St. Benedict, who in the year 1709 began to publish in print the Augsburg Hierarchy, struck in her honor; saw an older coin of the same matter, as he testifies in part 1 of that Work, chapter 6, class 3, section 10, or page 255, in these words: "In the year 1521 the aforenamed Matthäus Lang, the walls of the chapel of St. Radegund or Radiana being pulled down, procured a new church, and had it consecrated by John, suffragan bishop of Salzburg, and also propagated the memory of the deed to many and to posterity by abundant coinage both of gold and of silver. The gold coin I have not merited to see. On the silver coin one face, besides the year 1521 expressed, contained the effigy of the archbishop, with these words written round about the edge ('Matheus Card. Ar. O chieps. Salzburg. O ac Epus Gurcen O'), the insignia being placed interspersed. On the other face was seen St. Radiana or Radegund, attacked by two wolves, with this inscription round the edge: 'Holy virgin Radiana † pray to God for us.'" From these and other things to be reported below it appears that St. Radiana or Radegund had a public cult from immemorial time, or a hundred years before the decree of Pope Urban VIII.
[6] Besides, Karl Stengel in the Chronicle of the church of Augsburg, and nothing detracts from her sanctity, which was printed in German in the year 1620, in us, book 4, chapter 7, narrates most of the deeds of the same Saint, which the praised Khamm on page 253 and following of the Work just cited thus rendered into Latin: "There lived about these times" (he had a little above treated of Wolfard, prelate of Augsburg, who died in the year 1300) "that most pious handmaid of Christ and virgin Radegund, by others Radiana, hired by the wife of the lord possessor of the castle of Wellenburg, sprung from the Portner family, patricians of Augsburg, and ordered to tend the cattle in the stable, being of exceptional piety toward God and charity toward the poor, and especially toward lepers. She fulfilled her rustic service to the pleasure of her master and mistress; but the labors laid on her being discharged, she gave herself to God, sought heaven by prayers, filled her mind with heavenly banquets, served the ulcerous and those whose flesh was beset with swellings from an old scab, wiped away the itch and the scurf, cleansed the sores, and carried crusts of bread, the leavings of the table, milk and butter to lepers of this kind.
[7] "Being occupied for some while in this office of charity, Radegund, hastening as a bearer of milk and butter to the leper-house because by divine vengeance she was mortally wounded by wolves, not far distant from the castle of Wellenburg, trembling, met her master. By him therefore Radegund (already before this accused by the household as though of unfaithful service) is as one caught in the act rather severely rebuked. Being asked what she was carrying, she affirmed that she was carrying a comb and lye for washing and cleaning the heads of the scurfy. It was brought about in a moment of time that the milk and butter which she was carrying were turned into a comb and lye, and that she set before her angry master the metamorphosis wrought by God. And so, being peaceably dismissed by her master, she carried the milk and butter, restored to their own appearance, to the lepers, and refreshed the hungry; the divine Nemesis nevertheless punishing her slight lie of excuse by sending wolves upon Radegund: for when after the aforesaid miracle Radegund was passing from the castle through the wood to the leper-house, about to show help and service after her wont to the wretched lepers, she is attacked by wolves rushing upon her, is torn by their teeth, and is left half-dead and forsaken by the fleeing beasts. Thereafter, being thus forsaken and brought back to the castle, the penalty of the slightest lie being expiated by a dreadful death, within three days she passed from this calamitous life to a life blessed without end."
[8] as St. Gregory the Great, Pope, Lest any one doubt of the sanctity of this pious Handmaid because she was wounded by wolves, and not long after died of that hurt, it is well here to remember that prophet who for a light disobedience was slain on the way by a lion, as is narrated in the third book of Kings, chapter 13. Interpreters of sacred Scripture everywhere assert that the fault in this man of God was only venial, and they acknowledge that prophet, however he was taken off by a violent death, as just and holy. Let us hear Gregory the Great, who in book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 24, on occasion of this prophet, thus discourses to our purpose: "Since it is written, 'The just man, by whatsoever death he be overtaken, his justice shall not be taken from him,' what does it harm the elect, who without doubt tend to everlasting life, if for a little while they die hardly? And perhaps sometimes there is some fault of theirs, though very small, which ought to be cut away in that very death… Which the sacred oracles also attest: for the man of God sent against Samaria, because through disobedience he ate on the road, a lion killed him on that same road. But immediately there it is written: 'Because the lion stood beside the ass, and the lion did not eat of the corpse.' From which thing it is shown that the sin of disobedience was loosed in that very death; because the same lion which presumed to kill him living, did not presume to touch him slain: for he who had the daring to kill received not license to eat of the corpse of him he had slain; because he who had been culpable in life, his disobedience being punished, was now just by his death." These things can with proportion be applied to this holy Virgin, who was not devoured by wolves, although she was mortally wounded by them.
[9] and St. John Cassian from the violent death of the prophet St. John Cassian, in Conference 7, chapter 25, treating of energumens, thus reasons to our purpose: "But we know that holy men also have been bodily delivered to Satan or to great infirmities for the very lightest offences, since the divine clemency does not suffer that even the slightest blemish or spot be found in them on that day of judgment, burning out in the present, according to the sentence of the prophet, nay of God, all the dross of their heart, that it may send them, like gold or silver tried in the fire, to that eternity needing no penal purgation." Then, after other things, in the following chapter he thus confirms his reasoning by the violent death of the aforesaid prophet: "Which we have plainly seen fulfilled in that prophet and man of God in the third book of Kings, who for the fault of one disobedience, which nevertheless he incurred not of set purpose nor by the fault of his own will, but by another's deception, is straightway crushed by a lion, Scripture thus narrating of him: 'It is the man of God, who was disobedient to the mouth of the Lord, and the Lord delivered him to a lion, and it crushed him according to the word of the Lord which he spoke.' In which deed both the loosing of the present offence and of the incautious error, and the merits of his righteousness, for which the Lord delivered his prophet temporally to the tormentor, the very sparing and restraint of the ravager shows, because that most voracious beast dared not at all to taste of the corpse delivered to it."
[10] But lest so severe a vengeance of God should seem to have been usual only in the old Testament, and by other examples Cassian in the same place subjoins a twofold example of his own time, and reports the first in these words: "This abbot Paul therefore had advanced by the quiet and silence of the desert to so great a purity of heart that — I say not a woman's face — he would not suffer even the garments of that sex to be offered to his sight: for when, as he was going to the cell of a certain elder together with abbot Archebius, a dweller of the same desert, a woman met him by chance, being offended at meeting her, he ran back to his own monastery in such flight (leaving off the office of pious visitation which he had undertaken) as no one would flee from the face of a lion or of a most savage dragon, so that he was not bent even by the shouting and prayers of the aforesaid abbot Archebius calling him back, that they might continue the journey begun to seek out the elder, as they had purposed. Which, although it was done through zeal of chastity and ardor of purity, yet because it was presumed not according to knowledge, and the measure of the observance of discipline and of just discretion was exceeded (for he believed that not only familiarity, which is truly hurtful, but the very form of that sex should be execrated), he was straightway smitten with such a chastisement that his whole body was dissolved by the malady of paralysis, and no member in him could at all fulfil its office: since not only his feet and hands, but also the motion of his tongue by which the utterance of the voice is expressed, and his very ears, so lost the sense of hearing, that there remained in him nothing more of a man than only an immovable and insensible figure.
[11] "And he was brought to such a pass that the diligence of men could in no way suffice to serve his infirmity, unless a woman's diligence alone had ministered to him: of the new Testament demonstrate. for being carried to a monastery of holy virgins, food and drink, which he could not ask even by a nod, was administered to him by women's service, and with the same diligence they served him in the fulfilling of all his needs for nearly four years, that is until the end of his life. Who, although he was bound by so great a debility of all his members that no limbs in him retained a living and sensible motion, nevertheless so great a grace of miracles proceeded from him, that when the sick were anointed with the oil which had touched his corpse rather than his body, they were straightway cured of all their maladies; so that concerning this malady of his it became evidently and openly clear even to the unbelieving, both that the debility of all his members was bestowed by the dispensation and love of the Lord, and that the grace of healings was granted to him by the power of the Holy Spirit for a testimony of his purity and a manifestation of his merits." Then the same holy writer narrates another terrible punishment of abbot Moses, which we here pass over for brevity's sake. Now let us return from this digression to our way, and go on to report the things which happened after the death of this our holy Virgin.
[12] The praised Khamm, in part 1 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page 254 and following, thus pursues the burial of St. Radegund From the honorable burial of the Saint, and the rest of the things regarding her posthumous glory: "The lord of the castle of Wellenburg, Portner, a patrician of Augsburg, took care that the blessed Handmaid's corpse should be carried to Augsburg, to be buried in the burial-place of his noble family; but by the providence of the Deity it was carried back to the leper-house, the workshop of the charity practiced by Radegund, and was most honorably laid up. Report and a picture teach that Radegund's coffin, together with her body, being placed on a wagon by yoked oxen, was borne without a driver through the sloping field and the river Wertach to the said leper-house, and there was set down and buried: where presently a chapel was raised from the foundations, renewed in the year 1450" (Khamm in this place cites Stengel in the Ecclesiastical Annals, book 5, chapter 7, folio 153, by which citation I suppose his ecclesiastical Chronicle published in German is designated), "and, on account of frequent miracles, was endowed with indulgences by Cardinals and bishops… In the year 1464 the chapel of St. Radegund or Radiana is dedicated to the honor of the holy Ursula and Radegund by Jodocus, a Canon Regular of the Premonstratensian Order, bishop of Adramyttium, suffragan bishop of Augsburg. In the letters of Peter, Cardinal bishop of Augsburg, given in the year 1463, on the fourteenth day of April, it is called the chapel of the holy Ursula and Radegund."
Our Annals also report that there are extant letters given by eight Cardinals on the fourteenth day of May in the year 1453 for the gaining of indulgences in the chapel of St. Ursula, otherwise of St. Radegund. We have at hand a German transcript of those same indulgences; but since the authentic diploma was probably given in Latin, we do not think it worth while to pour it back again from the German into the Latin tongue.
[13] and from other tokens of her posthumous glory Further, Khamm in the same place goes on thus: "In the year 1492 the bones of St. Radegund, hitherto laid up near the door of the chapel, were, by order of Frederick Count of Zollern, bishop of Augsburg, translated into the choir before the principal altar, Udalric of Rechberg, dean of the cathedral church, celebrating the solemnity of the translation." Then that author at the year of Christ 1507 makes mention of Matthäus Lang, lord of the castle of Wellenburg, who afterward ordered gold and silver coinage to be struck in honor of St. Radiana or Radegund, as we reported above. After these things he narrates in the same place when the lordship of the castle of Wellenburg passed to the noble family of the Fuggers, and explains that matter in these few words: "In the year 1597 David Ungnad, Baron of Sonnenberg, possessor of the castle of Wellenburg, both in his own name and in that of his children born of his wife a Lang, sold it to Jacob Fugger: whence those descending from this most illustrious family of the Fuggers are to this day the blessed possessors of the lordship of Wellenburg."
[14] we dig out her immemorial cult, Finally Khamm thus makes us more certain of the public and hitherto continuing cult of this Saint: "In the year 1691 the bones of St. Radegund, before covered with a great stone, were raised, arranged after the fashion of a human figure, and elegantly adorned, the most illustrious Countess Fugger of Wellenburg, etc., born Baroness of Neuhaus, besides jewels, liberally giving her own most precious tunic of pure silk spun with gold and embroidered with Phrygian needlework for the adorning. After this the body of St. Radegund, distinguished with sumptuous vesture, on the third Sunday after Pentecost was carried in solemn procession from the church of Bergheim into her own church, laid again before the principal altar and exposed to the eyes of all, in the presence of the lords Leonard Frey, dean of the cathedral church of Augsburg, Francis Ziegler, vicar general, John Augustin, notary, and a Canon from among the four men. In the year 1703, before Augsburg was pressed by a siege, the same body of St. Radegund was translated into the city for safety's sake, and deposited with the Fathers of the Order of Preachers. Then, the danger of arms ceasing, in the year 1705 again on the third Sunday after Pentecost it was solemnly restored, and honorably placed in the mausoleum of its own church; where in this present age it is seen and devoutly honored."
[15] But from all these things we do not yet know on what day St. Radiana or Radegund died, although we are ignorant of the certain day of veneration, or on what fixed day she is honored each year; although we suspect that her yearly memory is celebrated on some Sunday after Pentecost, because the praised Khamm in part 1 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, pages 557 and 558, has the following concerning the chapel or church of this Saint: "The parish church of Bergheim has two filial churches annexed to it, one at Banacker, the other at St. Radegund's or Radiana's near the castle of Wellenburg… The dedication festival of the filial church of St. Radegund is performed on the very feast of the most holy Trinity. In the same church sacred sermons are preached to the people in the afternoon on Palm Sunday, on the fifth day of the week of the Lord's Supper, and on Easter Sunday. Plenary indulgences also are gained here on the fourth Sunday after Pentecost, a great multitude of people flocking to acquire the sacred treasure."
[16] and therefore we have subjoined her to the other Saint of like name. Since therefore the certain day of her death and of her veneration is unknown to us, we have followed the counsel of Father Heinrich Lamparter, reckoned in the Library of our Society on account of various lucubrations, who wrote thus from Augsburg to our Henschen in the year 1666: "I answer your Reverence late, because I could nowhere trace out what you desire to know concerning blessed Radegund. Neither the ordinary of the place, nor any of the others who ought to have known it, knows on what day she died. From the walls of her church, on which her Life had been painted, the colors have run off; the sepulchral stone also exhibits nothing more that is certain concerning the day of her death. I send a copy of the indulgences granted to the church in regard of that Saint. I would advise that her affairs be placed on the thirteenth day of August as an appendix to the affairs of St. Radegund the queen, who is celebrated on that day." And this is the reason why we have chosen to insert St. Radegund the maidservant into our Work today, and to subjoin her to the Acts of St. Radegund the queen. Behold all that we have been able to discover concerning the cult and deeds of that holy Virgin, although perhaps in the records of Wellenburg or in other German writers more may be found, the knowledge of which has not yet come to us.